A SOUR NOTE

The limitation of the enrollment in Music 1 is a direct contradiction to President Conant's desire for a speedy return to the liberal arts tradition. A general survey course mixing history and musical appreciation, Music 1 plays a valuable part in promoting the ideal combination of specialization in one field with a smattering cultural knowledge in others. No educational theorists can deny that music is one of culture's most brilliant children and perhaps the finest of the fine arts. The American genius, Edgar Allan Poe, believed that music was the highest form of human expression. Certainly, University Hall's refusal to give the Music Department enough funds to relieve its burden, which has consequently forced it to contract its operations, shows an unenlightened attitude. The refusal also partly explains what President Conant called "the present dilemma" of the Arts and Letters.

With an enrollment twice that of last year Professor Davidson's course is popular. His understanding of the right approach to the study of music has converted a former "snap" into a reasonably difficult subject. Seeing its merit proved, men interested in the esthetic side of music and would-be Freshman concentrators will be attracted next fall but repulsed at once because of the cut. One Professor and assistant to handle 125 men, let alone the present number of 300 is a task impossible to accomplish if any teaching standard is to be kept. Aside from Music 1, there is an insufficient amount of courses for concentrators and graduate students, so much has the staff been curtailed.

To restrain in any way Harvard's music courses is rank calumny upon Hesiod's nine Muses. If the cultural side of education is to be broadened or even its present width maintained, there must be a legitimate shifting of funds to ressurect the "open door" policy for Music.